Before the fall, it is not expected that any indictment will be filed in the case of the attack in Banjska, say Radio Free Europe sources in the Special Prosecutor’s Office of Kosovo.
At that time it will be a year since armed groups of Serbs attacked the Kosovo police in this village in the north, killing Sergeant Afrim Bunjaku.
In the armed clashes that followed, three more Serb attackers were killed.
Millan Radoicic, a former politician and businessman from the north of Kosovo, who is believed to be in Serbia, claimed responsibility for the attack.
Investigations, in parallel, are being conducted by the High Public Prosecutor’s Office in Belgrade.
How far did the investigations in Kosovo reach?
The sources of Radio Free Europe in the Special Prosecutor’s Office of Kosovo say that “the work on the case is in the final stage” and that “the investigations in the case of Radoicic have received the final epilogue”.
“After the completion and examination of some peripheral reports, we will proceed further”, they say.
Other details are not given, except that the indictment is not expected to be filed before autumn.
While Radoicic is believed to be free in Serbia, three people are detained in Kosovo in connection with the case.
In the Kosovo Institute for Justice (IKD), which monitors the justice system in the country, they say that the Special Prosecutor’s Office is within the legal deadline for completing the indictment, since with the latest legal changes, the period foreseen for the completion of the investigations and the filing of the indictment it can go up to three years, from two and a half years as it was earlier.
According to the IKD, the Prosecutor’s Office has in front of it a considerable amount of material evidence and suspects for the attack.
“The fact that [the attack] happened about nine months ago does not necessarily mean that the Prosecutor’s Office hastens its actions and submits a lower-quality indictment. The time period of three years, which is available, should serve to have a high-quality and well-proven indictment – through material and personal evidence”, say the IKD.
From this institute, however, they emphasize that the Prosecutor’s Office should inform the public more about the course of investigations – “without damaging them, show how far they have come”.
Radio Evropa e Lire also requested comments on this topic from the Minister of Justice of Kosovo, Albulena Haxhiu, but she did not respond.
At the end of last year, based on a request from the Ministry of Interior of Kosovo, the international police organization, INTERPOL, issued an arrest warrant for Radoicic.
How far did the investigations in Serbia go?
It is not clear where exactly Radoicic is, but the president of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, said after the attack that he is in the “territory of central Serbia”.
The state authorities in this country rejected the accusations made by the leaders of Kosovo that they are behind the “terrorist attack” of September 24 in Banjska.
Radoicic claimed responsibility for that attack on September 29, through his lawyer.
The High Public Prosecutor’s Office in Belgrade charges him with several criminal offenses related to the illegal purchase of weapons and “causing general danger”.
In early October, the High Court in Belgrade rejected the Prosecutor’s request for his detention and released him, but confiscated his passport and forbade him from going to Kosovo.
Contacted on July 15 by Radio Free Europe, the High Public Prosecutor’s Office in Belgrade said that “investigations are ongoing.”
“In these investigations, the High Public Prosecutor’s Office in Belgrade cooperates with the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Customs Directorate and other state bodies of the Republic of Serbia, while in order to ascertain the full factual situation – through the Ministry of Justice – it has also contacted EULEX [EU mission for the rule of law in Kosovo”.
“From EULEX, documentation has been requested regarding the critical event of September 24, 2023, in Banjska. The documentation, until today, has not been submitted”, says the statement.
What do EU officials say?
REL asked EULEX about this request of the Serbian prosecution, but this mission requested that the questions be forwarded to the European Union Office in Pristina.
In a written response to the REL, this office confirmed that it has received this request two weeks ago and that it has been forwarded to the relevant authorities in Kosovo.
“We still haven’t received any response [from the Kosovo authorities]”, it says in the response, where it is also emphasized that, in October of last year, the Serbian authorities were also forwarded a request from Kosovo for mutual legal cooperation in the case of the attack in Banjska.
“We have not yet received any response [from the Serbian authorities]”, the EU Office in Kosovo informs and add that the Kosovar authorities, meanwhile, have requested mutual legal cooperation with the authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina and that a such a request has been sent to the official Sarajevo.
“We have received an answer [from Sarajevo], which has been forwarded to the competent authorities in Kosovo at the right time,” said the EU in Pristina, but did not specify what the answer was.
The High Public Prosecutor’s Office in Belgrade in October 2023 said that Radoicic is accused of providing weapons, ammunition and explosive devices with great destructive power from Tuzla, in the northeast of Bosnia and Herzegovina, from January to September 24.
What does the USA say?
The US Assistant Secretary of State, James O’Brien, said recently that Serbia has promised that Radoicic will face the law regarding the September events in Banjska i Zvecani.
The US State Department labeled him a criminal who must be held accountable.
Otherwise, Radoicic is under US and UK sanctions, due to suspicions of organized crime and corruption.
Dialogue conditioning
The Prime Minister of Kosovo, Albin Kurti, has made the continuation of the dialogue for the normalization of relations with Serbia conditional on the handover of Radoicic and his “terrorist paramilitary group” to the judicial authorities of Kosovo.
“As long as Radoicic and his group are free and protected in Serbia, there is no trust in the dialogue for normalization,” Kurti said on June 28.
In an interview with Euronews Albania on July 16, the Minister of the Interior of Kosovo, Xhelal Svečla, said that the authorities in Pristina have evidence that the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, was directly “involved in the training of the terrorist group that carried out the attack in Banjska “.
Among this evidence, he cited intelligence information and oral testimony.
The head of the Office for Kosovo in the Government of Serbia, Petar Petkovic, reacted on the X platform, saying that “the only evidence that exists is the persecution of Serbs by Kurti and Svečla”.
Without mentioning any evidence that would support this claim, Petkovic said that “many lies are told about Banjska, and the biggest lie is that Vucic gave the order.”
In another development, the Speaker of the Assembly of Kosovo, Glauk Konjufca, said that if Serbia is not punished, it will repeat the attack in Banjska. /REL/
